rise of the morning star
by PreludeInZ
Summary: TAG S01E08 AU - what if Alan had needed to destroy Thunderbird 5? A story about Alan and John and what happens when you ruin your brother's life.
1. far too easy

"…and blow me into space."

The comm channel goes dead silent. Everyone hears John say it, but Alan's the only one who can do anything about it. Those beats of silence are seconds ticking down towards the end of his brother's life. In his head some voice–his gut, his conscience, his _common sense_ –says _**No**_.

Alan, his fingers tightening around TB3's controls and teeth gritting, with all the defiance of youth and fear and righteous anger, says, " _Hell no._ "

The AI with John's life in its non-existent hands is given pause by his big brother's final gambit, and Alan just _reacts_ , the lightning reflexes none of his family can quite believe of him taking hold. To a degree, all of the Thunderbirds are extensions of their pilots. They've all trained long enough that piloting their 'birds is just second-nature. It's something different with Alan, though, almost otherworldly. When Alan's really in the zone, he practically _is_ Thunderbird 3.

And it's Alan, not his ship, who's going to tear his brother's station to pieces.

TB5's mechanical arm is poised in front of his view screen. Alan's staring into that same red-eye, ringed around utter blackness, vicious and vindictive. Alan's being threatened too, and John had better not know that, because there's no way in the world the monster aboard Thunderbird 5 matters more than his family.

There's the mooring claw clamped to his tail fin, but Alan's not going anywhere. The grasping arms are free and he feels the ship beneath him straining its hydraulics, flexing all of its considerable muscle as Alan redirects power from the engines. The first order of business is getting that claw out of his face, and he torques the controls, bringing one of his own ship's arms into play like a weapon. He latches on in the first go, and _pulls_.

It's _easy_.

And it's a major system aboard TB5, and EOS _screams_ , a shriek like an old dial-up modem, though no one's heard the sound in nearly half a century.

He hears John yell in protest and through his view screen he can see lights flashing red aboard the space station. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Scott flare to life on the holocomm. His eldest brother is bewildered, but he stops short when he sees the look on Alan's face. There's an order over the communication's channel for Brains to bring up '5s schematics, but Alan doesn't need them. Vaguely he hears Scott telling the engineer to hit the shutdown on 5's comm array, so that Tracy Island is the AIs only escape. It's all software, what Brains can do from the ground, and in full possession of its facilities, EOS could find a way through. The hardware is another story. Alan grits his teeth.

The gravity ring, usually clear, pristine white, a halo of light in the darkness of space, is flashing, flaring red. Alan is reminded of that damned red eye, and he sinks further into himself, into the sheer fury that this thing would hurt _his brother_.

He's already rocketed forward, playing with the slack of the paid out line from the mooring claw, and twisting his ship, he manages to catch the cable in range of 3's jets. One short flare is all it takes, simultaneously firing the retros, keeping himself stationary. The claw detaches from his tail fins as soon as he severs the cable.

Now he's loose.

Alan's moving even as the ring starts to spin again, whirling up to speed and then braking again almost as soon as it hits its peak. Distantly through the blood red gleam aboard the gravity ring, Alan sees his brother flung against one of the section dividers by the sudden change in momentum, and he flinches at the the sound of an impact, a sharp cry of anguish over the comm channel, cut off midway through as the line goes dead.

"Alan, get in there," Scott's hologram urges, and then he blinks away.

Then in Alan's earpiece over a secure, private line, Brains pipes up, his voice steadier than usual. When it matters, when its one of his adoptive family in relying on his technical knowledge, then he's almost unflappable. "You'll have to separate the gravity ring from the m-main module. Your thrusters should have enough power, b-but be careful. We've lost all status readouts from John."

"Am I gonna be able to get him _out_?" Alan asks, voice clipped, urgent. He's already lining up his grasping arms again, preparing to latch onto the ring. "He pulled his _helmet_ off. Is there enough air, is it gonna depressurize? Brains, what if-what if h-he..."

"One thing at a time, Alan," Brains cuts him off, reassuring. "Thunderbird 3 _built_ Thunderbird 5. It can take it apart just as easily. There are protocols in p-place for this sort of thing. The gravity ring will s-seal along each sector, you'll be able to c-cut your way in through the port from the comm module. Auxiliary oxygen and power will hold long enough for you to get him out. Once it's s-separate, you'll have to leave him. Your priority _h-has_ to be destroying the comm module. I'm jamming every signal I can, but I've never seen a p-program like this, it won't be long before it g-gets past me. EOS _c-can't_ be allowed to leave Thunderbird 5."

Alan exhales hard, even as he makes contact and locks into the docking ports. It occurs to him, distantly, that this is the last time he'll do so. From this angle, he can't see John anymore and his heart is hammering in his chest. He needs to get his focus back. "Okay."

Locked in, all it takes is a jerk of his controls, and his cockpit lurches as the gravity ring detaches. Outside, if there'd been air to convey the sound, it would have been all screeching metal as he tears the ship apart. It's easy. It's far too easy, and it just reinforces how fragile the station really is. How vulnerable John's always been, how much he trusted his life to his ship.

3 built 5, but it was their father piloting it with John in the co-pilot's seat, all those years ago. Alan had only been ten, when Thunderbird 5 had started to come together. Manufactured on Earth and delivered into orbit, piece by piece. Jeff and John would be gone for weeks at a time, assembling the space station, and when they came back, John would be _glowing_ with excitement, pride in how his 'bird was finally coming together. Their father had conceived it, Brains had designed it, but John had _built_ it, and he was the only one of them who'd had that privilege. And now Alan's tearing it to pieces. The vindictive edge of fury is leaving him-Thunderbird 5 was never what was killing John, but it's been lost to the parasite inside it.

Alan tries not to think about how-if John's still alive-losing '5 is going to kill him.


	2. dread like darkness

Alan's exhausted by the time he gets EVA, by the time his job is done. Thunderbird 5 is drifting in orbit in pieces, dead, and Alan can only hope the same isn't true of his brother.

He has to break everything down, moment by moment, to keep from thinking about John and that last, cut-off cry of pain.

Alan patches into the exterior hatch on the gravity ring with Brains' instructions still in his ear, brute-forcing his way through the last remnants of 5's emergency systems. There's no hiss of air as the hatch opens-this sector has already lost pressure. It's dark inside the gravity ring-absent of any rotation, there's no simulated gravity, either, and Alan has to pull himself along the inside, slowly picking his way through floating debris. The only lights are deep, urgent red, the last of the auxiliary power has sealed every section of the interior. Alan has to shut each door behind him as he progresses, makeshift airlocks.

The first sector has lost pressure and vented its atmosphere, but readouts on Alan's environmental sensors indicate that there's still air as he progresses to the second. The concentration's dropped, it's down to nearly half of what it's supposed to be. But it's better than nothing.

One thing at a time.

Only the next thing is John, and he's just inside the door of the third sector, hanging lifelessly halfway between the floor and ceiling. Alan screams at the sight of John's face, blank and empty. The red light makes his brother look drenched in blood. His helmet is nowhere to be seen. The shift in pressure between compartments the doors open twists his body slightly, his limbs slack and unresistant to the motion, but it's all _wrong_ , jerky, unnatural movement. Alan's first impulse is to scramble backward, reeling in low-gravity and scrambling to tuck himself up against the wall, curling himself inward, even as harsh, choking sobs wrack his body.

"Brains, he's _dead_ ," he gasps into his comm, and wishes for Scott and Virgil and Gordon and his absent father and his mom and just someone, _anyone_ to be here instead of him, looking at John like this. Alan's giving in to grief and shock and panic, his eyes are welling with stinging tears that he can neither shed nor wipe away and he's nearly blind in the crimson dark. "John? _John_ , oh no. No, he can't, _no_ , _please_. Help, _help_ , please-"

"...Alan," Brains' voice is gentle, soft. He's got the feed from Alan's suit-cam, though the low light must give him only the barest picture of what Alan's volume of his voice in Alan's ear increases, cutting through the sound of the youngest Tracy's sobbing. "Alan, you d-don't know that yet. There's still air and the l-loss of pressure was gradual. H-he may still be okay. You n-need to return p-power to his suit so I can run diagnostics. The bio-circuitry went offline wh-when he suffered an impact, b-but past that w-we don't know what happened. He needs your help, Alan."

"I don't want to touch him," Alan manages, gasping through his tears and struggling to clear the tears from his eyes. "I-I can't, if he's _dead_ , Brains-my brother, h-he's my _brother_. It's _John_. I d-don't want him to be like this, he can't be gone, he can't just be dead, he _can't_."

"Alan." Brain's voice grows firm, taking on an edge of command that it never has. "Turn around."

"I don't-"

" _Now_ , Alan. H-he needs you. You can d-do this. One thing at a time. Turn around."

It's the same firmness that Scott's voice takes on, when he gives an order. Alan swallows hard and slowly uncoils himself, one moment, one muscle at a time. He presses a hand against the curve of the wall he'd huddled against and slowly manages to look back, through the stinging blur of tears.

Nothing's changed. John still looks like nothing more than a shadow, empty and wrong, only now Alan's moving towards him. There's a distant sense of urgency-everything Brains said makes sense; good, rational reasons to hope, to hurry to his brother's side and try to shake him awake.

But Alan's been doing this a little too long to believe that it'll always be okay. He'd been too young to understand when he'd lost his mother. He'd been too young not to hold fast to naive optimism, even after weeks, months, a year without a trace of their father. Alan's old enough now, he's seen and done enough, to know that he doesn't get to save everybody. It doesn't matter how much they mean to him.

Dread is clinging to him like the darkness all around, trying to hold him back, but he's close enough to touch his brother now and he reaches out, tentative and still very, very frightened, to close a hand around John's wrist.

And in the sum of all hope, against Alan's despair and terror, there's a feeble twitch of John's fingers. In the thinness of the air, with his exterior audio inputs wide-open and straining against the silence of the dead station, Alan hears the very tiniest catch of breath and a faint, protesting whimper of pain. John stirs himself from stillness, only just managing to lift his head and stare at his baby brother.

There's not enough air for words, but Alan can read the helpless desperation in John's eyes-he's seen it plenty of times before now, and he knows exactly what it means.

 _Help._


	3. anchored in the moment

John's not reliably conscious, he doesn't open his eyes again until Alan finds and gets his helmet back on. He seals it, oxygen from the pack on his back flooding into John's lungs, rousing him slightly. All this does is elicit a long, aching groan as Alan brings his radio back online. John's in and out the whole time it takes Alan to look him over. He winces as he finds the cracked panel in the back of John's suit, the pack housing the circuitry smashed open and the hard drive damaged. No wonder the bio-circuitry cut out, the motherboard is halfway gone.

"Oh god, Johnny, that thing hit you _hard_ ," he whispers, fumbling in his brother's belt for a spare piece of circuitry. Alan's hands are shaking as he pries the back of the shell open. Any impact that would have cracked the casing on the suit will _definitely_ have left his brother bruised, might have broken bones, maybe even left him bleeding internally. They need to get back home, get John taken care of. Alan slots a fresh CPU into John's suit and hits a button for a hard reset. It'll start to transmit data to Brains back on the island, but for now, Alan needs to get back to his own ship, and out of the wreckage of John's.

"Hang on, John," he murmurs, looping his older brother's arms over his own shoulders-he's never felt so much smaller than John than he does right now-and cinching John's wrists securely with a loop of data tether. "I'll get you home."

It seems like it takes forever to get back aboard TB3, and yet Alan's brain doesn't snap out of autopilot until he hears John's voice, and somehow it feels like only moments have passed.

"Al...Alan?"

"Hang on, John," Alan answers, terse with anxiety about the G-force they're about to undergo. He's taking it as gently as possible, but Brains has been on the holocomm, telling him that John's got broken ribs, that one of his lungs has partially collapsed. Alan's swapped a fresh tank of pure O2 into John's helmet, easing his breathing, but it's a stopgap. John needs help.

There's a pained, hissing intake of breath over the radio in Alan's ear, just as they hit the upper atmosphere. John's voice is faint, whispering weak, and he stirs feebly against the restraints crossing his chest in the co-pilot's seat. Alan can't spare a glance away from his console, but he steals one anyway, his eyes darting sideways to his brother's colourless face; his bright, glistening eyes, damp with tears of pain. Or grief.

"My-m-my station. Five. _Alan_. Go back."

"Can't." Stubbornly, with a jut of his lower lip that he gets from Scott. Alan shakes his head.

John's voice breaks, pleading, " _Please_ , Allie. I-I...home-I have to-to go back...home..."

"We're _going_ home."

And then the force of reentry hits Alan square in the chest, the way it always does, but this time he knows it's hitting John all the harder. There's a stifled groan, and then a half-choked sob and then Alan shuts his radio off. He can't listen to his brother like this. He clenches his jaw and bows his head, forcing himself to concentrate on his landing sequence.

"It's gonna be okay," he murmurs, into the open channel in his brother's ear. "We're going home, John. You're gonna be okay."

There's nothing in response, but of course he wouldn't hear it anyway. Alan's eyes are hot with tears of his own, for his brother, and for what he's done.

The rest of the family is all still out on assignment. They've checked in, they've been briefed, but no one can make it home yet. Alan sags in his seat as the track beneath him hums and whirs. John is slumped limply in the other chair, blacked out during the tail end of the burn. Alan can just see the slow rise and fall of his chest. It's not enough to assure him that John will pull through, but it'll do.

When the command pod returns to the lounge, Brains and Grandma are waiting. Brains goes immediately to John's side, even as Alan's getting up, still vaguely nauseous from the adrenaline and the crushing pressure of reentry. Grandma's there, holding out her hands and taking his arms to steady him, help him to his feet. Alan feels a little as though he's stepped sideways out of the situation. He's wishing for his brothers again. His dad.

"I-I'll n-need your help to g-get him to the Med-bay," Brains says, not looking up as he carefully unseals John's helmet. There's a hiss, a loss of pressure and John's chest heaves unevenly as his eyes fly open, panicked and darting everywhere. Alan takes another step sideways, towards the edge of the picture, where he doesn't have to be part of this.

"J-just here, Alan." Brains is brusque and unfailingly capable whenever it's a medical emergency-he and Virgil have that in common-so numbly, mechanically, Alan does as he's told.

Time skips. Alan's got John's arm around his shoulders again, and his arms are on fire from the weight he's supporting-John's _tall_. Alan always forgets how tall John is. John's face is cold, pressed against Alan's shoulder and his breathing is still shallow and catching every other breath. It takes Alan a moment to realize that he's holding his brother, halfway sat up on the gurney Brains had had ready and waiting. They're already down in the med bay. Brains has a stethoscope, has a pair of fingers together, gently moving his hands down John's back, pale beneath the unzipped seam of his spacesuit. Alan finds himself staring at a dark, horrific looking bruise, all down his brother's side and spine. He closes his eyes.

Alan's having a hard time staying anchored in the moment, because it feels like he's blinked, and then he's hovering anxiously next to his brother. He's taken John's hand, and can't seem to stop marveling at the weight of it, how John's long, slender fingers are dead weight in his own. It's funny how that makes a difference. Alan lifts his gaze to John's face and can't figure out what's changed-until he realizes that John's acquired an IV and an oxygen mask.

Brains is gently tugging on Alan's elbow, with gloved hands. He says something soft and kind, trying to usher Alan out of the room. He says something further about a thoracostomy and a chest tube and there's a gleaming steel tray with a a scalpel and other instruments that Alan can't seem to stop staring at.

But at some point he must have, because the next thing he sees is the hallway outside the med bay, the lift door, and Grandma, and he must really be out of it, because he's next aware of being curled up on the couch with tears on his face and his head in her lap. He seems to have used up his ability to stay in the present in getting through the ordeal-it's only been two hours since he launched-but no, because he opens his eyes and yawns, and it's dark now, and Grandma's gone. Alan's still in his suit and his head is resting on a pillow. He looks up and Virgil and Kayo are standing over him. The window behind them is the deep, midnight indigo, and the sight of the star-field brings tears to Alan's eyes again.

"I-is John...is he...?" His voice doesn't seem like his own, too small and frightened to be fully in his command.

Virgil's hand on his shoulder is warm and Kayo's gently brushing his hair out of his eyes. "He's going to be okay, Alan. We're all very proud of you," she assures him softly, and she _sounds_ proud. "You did a good job."

"Did he wake up?" Again with that tremor in his voice. "Is he mad?"

Virgil nudges him gently into a sitting position and ruffles his hair. Kayo makes a faintly irritated noise and brushes it back into place. "John's not gonna be anything but flat on his back unconscious for another twelve hours or so. C'mon Allie. Let's get you to bed."

Alan nods and accepts the hand up to his feet. It feels like Grandma had done the same only minutes ago. By the time he's curled up in bed, time seems like it's finally settled back into place. The weight of the reality pressing down on him has him fleeing beneath his blankets, closing his eyes, and hoping that things feel better in the morning.


	4. morning star

Alan's bedroom shares a wall with John's, and has ever since the family moved out to the island. He'd only been twelve, and he and Gordon had been split up for the first time since childhood. No more bunk beds. No more late night conversations with Gordon, who had more than once dropped off to sleep, hanging halfway off the top bunk, only to fall off the top with an enormous crash that woke Alan in a shouting panic. Once it had necessitated a middle-of -the-night emergency room run to reset a dislocated shoulder, but only once. Gordon's always been fairly durable. When he falls he tends to bounce.

But Alan's _own_ room. That first night, pretending he wasn't expecting nightmares, pretending he was fine with the monstrous roar of the sea all around the island-John had turned up at his door, nineteen, tall and taciturn. He'd been armed with a holographic tablet containing all of Thunderbird Three's schematics, and the earliest of the plans for Five. John had always had a way of seeing right through Alan's bravado, and they'd stayed up until dawn, babbling at each other about rocketry and space stations and things to come.

Just as he was falling asleep, sprawled comfortably across the foot of Alan's bed John had thumbed a control on the tablet, and there had been a slow, hydraulic hum as a shade built into the ceiling had slid open. Alan hadn't even known his room _had_ a skylight until John had drowsily directed Alan's attention to the slow rise of Venus. The morning star. Then he'd just been snoring softly at the foot of the bed, while Alan had stared in awe at the glory of the pre-dawn sky. He hadn't thought about the way the island's sky was pure, uninhibited by the light pollution he'd gotten used to, growing up in a city. From that first night, Alan had been enamoured by his room, all his childish fears chased away by John, and the sense of wonder they shared at the skies above.

In what he thinks is the morning, he's woken by the sound of something shattering against the wall above his head. He throws his hands over his face instinctively, but nothing falls on him-whatever it was impacted on the other side of the wall. John's room.

Alan scrambles out of bed. Sleep had been fitful, fraught with worry about his brother, and challenging on account of the long nap he'd had curled up on the couch. It's early afternoon now, according to the clock on his bedside. Virgil had bullied him out of his uniform and into proper pajamas, and he skids into the hall in his bare feet, tripping over the hems of his slightly-too-long pajama pants as he barrels through John's bedroom door.

"John?"

John's been put to bed too, in far better shape than when Alan had seen him last, conscious and halfway sat up against a heap of pillows. It's at least twenty-four hours later, and Alan's still trying to get himself oriented, but nothing matters beyond the fact that John's okay. He's breathing a little heavily, but he lifts his gaze as Alan catches himself in the doorway. John's sitting up and he's a little pale and there's a tube in his nose, but he's okay, and Alan could just about cry as he bolts across the room and clambers onto the end of the bed. "John!"

He's stumbled into the middle of what might be the worst moment of John's life, and certainly one of the lowest points of Scott's. Alan doesn't notice the way Scotty freezes as he crosses in the room, the way John's face goes blank, the way his hands clench in the blankets.

Scott's the one who speaks first, catches Alan by the back of his shirt and hauls him off the bed, gives him a shove towards the door. "Alan, go see Virgil," he orders brusquely.

Alan's bewildered by this and he squirms free of Scott's grasp, recalcitrant. "What? No, I just-"

"Stay."

And _that's_ John, but his voice is dark and quiet and terrible and like nothing Alan's ever heard before. The way his brother's voice hits him makes him think of the same sharp, sudden impact that cracked John's ribs, collapsed his lung. But that's all fine, though. That's better. John's okay. John's lucky to be alive and he should be glad that he's home.

Scott's got a chair next to John's bed and he shifts in it, avoids John's gaze. Alan steals a glance across the room, sees some broken glass at the foot of the wall. There's a pitcher of water on a tray beside the bed, but nothing to drink it out of. Someone threw something. Scott looks like he wants to throw up. It all clicks, just a little too late, even as Alan's hands catch, twist the hem of his t-shirt anxiously. Scott's just told John about Five.

The eldest clears his throat and shoots Alan a quick, anxious glance. "John, look, we need to-"

"I don't want to talk to _you_. You weren't there. Alan was. He _stays_." And John fixes his baby brother with a green-eyed stare that makes Alan feel tiny and small and suddenly sick inside. "Tell me what happened."

Alan's stomach drops as reality hits. _Oh god, he doesn't remember. He doesn't remember and Scott's just told him Five's gone._

And John's coldly, blackly _furious_.

John doesn't get mad. John's the one you can't get to. John might sometimes get annoyed, might sometimes stray into the territory of stern, but he never gets _mad_. John's cool and calm and eternally unflappable. Their dad had used to say that you couldn't ruffle John's feathers if you hit him with a _brick_.

Only apparently it'll ruffle John's feather's if you tear his space station to pieces around him and drag him out of the wreckage and back down to earth.

Scott clears his throat and speaks up before Alan can answer. "He did what he was told. Alan, Virgil wants you for debrief. _Go_. John, listen, I know this is hard, but-"

"You don't know _anything_ ," John snaps, in the same moment that Alan says " _No one_ told me what to do."

If Scott had flinched any harder it would've been audible, like glass breaking, but neither John nor Alan care, staring at one another. "What the hell happened to my station?" John demands. "What did you _do_?"

Something inside Alan is hardening into defiance, remembering the way he'd nearly watched his brother die. Alan saved his big brother's _life_. This isn't _fair_. There's smoke roiling in his stomach, curling upward and then catching, flaring into anger. "I took it apart. I had to." Alan feels his jaw tighten, grits his teeth. "I tore it apart. It was _killing_ you. You said, _you said_ ; if...if EOS couldn't be stopped, then I would have to take Five apart. So I _did_."

"Alan, that's enough," Scott cuts in again, standing up and putting both hands on Alan's shoulders to steer him out of the room. Alan's still staring at John, who looks stunned, stricken. Maybe he didn't know. Maybe Scott hadn't gotten that far. Thunderbird Five out of commission was one thing. Thunderbird Five torn to pieces was another.

John falters and the anger in him quells slightly. "You did...you _what_?"

Alan's running on too much of the wrong kind of sleep and he feels awful. He'd wanted it to be over, wanted to see John, to know his brother was safe and home and going to get better. John has no right to be mad. EOS wasn't more important than his family, Thunderbird Five isn't more important than his family. "I did what you said. I had to."

"It wasn't _supposed_ to be your call-"

"Well, you weren't gonna make it! Someone had to, that thing _beat you_. It was smarter and you couldn't beat it and I-"

"I had it under control!"

"No, you _didn't_!" Alan shouts, accidentally, and breaks away from Scott, looming over his brother, still halfway reclining in bed and pale and on oxygen, and if Alan hadn't been so mad he wouldn't ever have shouted at John, not like this. "You were gonna let it _kill you_ , and what if it had? What was I supposed to do then? It was gonna punch a hole through my hull and then what was I gonna do? I didn't have my helmet on, and you would've been dead, and then it would've killed _me_ too. I _had to_."

John's stopped and he's staring, and Alan realizes abruptly that there's no way his brother knew that. He couldn't have. Not John, not the same brother who's always supposed to know when Alan's scared. Not John who's secretly been Alan's hero since the first time he was trusted with the redhead's telescope, his star charts. Not John who stayed up the whole night to show him the morning star, so many years ago, not fifty feet from where Alan's standing now.

Alan doesn't know what John remembers or doesn't remember or how he thought things were supposed to go. But the moment of silence stretching between them is killing Alan. He takes a deep breath and manages not to shout, though his voice cracks half way through, "I can't keep losing my _family_! You can't do that again, you can't _ever_ do that again! We're more important!"

Scott's got him by the collar now, and he's being hauled out of the room. He stumbles when they hit the hallway and Scott lets him go. Alan's eyes were already blurring with tears, and he's doubled over, gasping out broken sobs now. Scott's saying something-trying to, at least-and Alan can't tell if he's mad or just going for damage control. Scott didn't know what happened either. When his oldest brother reaches for his shoulder, Alan ducks away and bolts. Still in his bare feet, still in a pair of hand-me-down pajamas, he finds the nearest door outside and runs.


	5. upside the head

Gordon's the one who comes to get him, and Alan's glad it isn't Virgil or Scott. It's been hours and Alan's sunburnt and the tide's coming in and the sun's going down and the ankles of his pajama pants are soaked. Most of all he feels young and stupid and heartbroken, because he's ruined John's life and it seems very likely that his brother's just never going to forgive him.

Scott or Virgil would be all soft voices and kindness and gathering the baby of the family up to bundle him back into the house for warm milk and cookies that aren't Grandma's. Gordon's different, and Alan's always been grateful for the fact that Gordon's different. He knows what it's like to be babied, knows how Alan _hates_ it sometimes. So there are footsteps on the creaky old set of stairs that lead down to the beach, from the cliff-side where the house sits. Then the soft sound of sand beneath bare feet, and then Gordon drops to sit on the beach next to his little brother.

Gordon's never without a bottle of water, and he nudges Alan in the elbow with it insistently, until it's finally accepted and Alan takes a long drink. Then another, and another, draining the bottle with a sigh. In retrospect he realizes it was ice cold and still damp with condensation, and probably Gordon brought it out specifically for him.

Gordon doesn't say anything, not at first, shuffling his feet on the dry sand, burying them up to the ankles as he settles down to recline on his elbows. The sun's starting to graze the horizon when Gordon seems to decide what to say. This is a carefully crafted illusion; Gordon's probably known exactly what he wanted to say the entire time, he's just added time to help add impact. "...if you like, Al, I'll go and smack him in the mouth for you. I don't care if he blew out one of his lungs, he's way outta line."

Well, that's definitely not what Virgil or Scott would've said. Alan sniffles, manages a weak fragment of a laugh. " _Don't_ do that."

"Well, I wanna. He'd deserve it. God, that ass. Jeez, Alan." Gordon pauses, lightly headbutts his brother in the shoulder, the sort of weirdly affectionate gesture that's unique to Gordon. "Scott told me what he said," he adds as an afterthought, so it doesn't seem like the desire for aggression is unwarranted.

"It's not John's fault."

Gordon plainly disagrees with this, growling under his breath, "Like _hell_. "He would've been dead if it hadn't been for you, Allie. It's absolutely John's stupid fault, and he doesn't get away with being awful just because-"

Alan interrupts, "-because I tore his station to bits?" The youngest shrugs and hunches further down, hugging his knees and bowing his head. He's been playing it over and over again in his head, how easily the station had come apart. He's been plumbing the depths of his memory, remembering a very young version of his older brother, and all those months he'd spent constructing the station. He'd been thinking about how _he_ would feel if he lost Thunderbird Three.

He's already convinced it wouldn't even compare, though Gordon's apparently had the same thought, and come to the opposite conclusion. "It's just a ship. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter."

"His whole _life_ was up there, Gordon. He's lost _everything_."

This is maybe the wrong thing to say because it just sets Gordon off again. "No. No, not even close, Alan. He's got _us_ , Al, c'mon. We nearly lost _him_ , that's what we're talking about here. How d'you think we'd all be doing if John had died? It goes both ways. We all would've done exactly what you did, he can't be mad at you just 'cuz you're the one who had to do it."

"It's different," he insists stubbornly. "John's always been different about Five, you don't understand. I don't think he'll ever forgive me."

Gordon huffs. "Yeah, I guess maybe it is, because you're the only one who'd think he's got anything to forgive _you_ for. Five's replaceable. John isn't. You made the right call."

"Well, what if _he_ was right, though, and he had it under control, and I-"

Gordon sits up, puts an arm around Alan's shoulders, pulls him over. This stings, Alan's burnt his shoulders through his t-shirt, but he's still somehow glad for the contact. It's been lonely on the beach. It's not a hug as much as it is an insistent closing of the distance between them, so he's speaking right into his brother's ear, firm and convicted. "He could've blown another hole in our family. There's no excuse for that. He took a _stupid_ risk for a stupider reason. If it'd been you or me or Virge pulling a stunt like that-putting ourselves in a position to be _murdered_ -hell, Alan. If it'd been me, Scott would've torn me to shreds, and then sent John in to mop up what was left. Scott's going easy on him because he was in such damn rough shape when he landed, but he was having kittens down here when it looked like it might go the other way."

This doesn't make Alan feel any better. If anything, it makes him wonder why he's the only one with the inclination to believe that John's instincts might've been right. If Virgil and Gordon and Scott all thought John had been making a stupid call, why does Alan wish John had been the one allowed to make it? "I dunno, Gordon."

"Yeah, well, I do." And then, with the sort of genuine emotion that you only rarely get out of Gordon, "C'mon Alan, don't beat yourself up. Please, it just about kills me. You saved his damn life, you _should_ be proud. Allie, everybody else is proud of you."

Everyone but the person who matters. "John's not." It seems melodramatic to say it, so he just thinks it instead, _John hates me._

Alan hears the beat of silence marked by Gordon, refraining from groaning audibly. Instead there's a heavy sigh and a hand squeezing his stinging shoulder. "John'll come around. Just-give him time, I guess. Brains is already talking about a Mark Two, a replacement. Let the shock wear off, let him get over it, and leave him the hell alone until then. If he wants to go at somebody, he can take a run at _me_. I wasn't kidding. I'm just _itching_ to slap him upside the head."

"Don't _slap John_."

" _Someone_ ought to, and better me than Virgil. _I'm_ mildly annoyed, _Virgil's_ pissed." Gordon shrugs his shoulders, lets Alan go and gets to his feet. The sun's gone down and the stars are coming out, and neither of them even noticed. The wind over the water is growing chill and Alan's tired again. He hasn't done anything all day except sit in the sun and get crisp. He'll be freckles to the wrists by the end of the week and his hair will be another few sun-lightened shades blonder. "C'mon, Al. You got a sunburn and a half."

"Yeah." Alan refrains from saying the thing he's thinking, again. _That's probably about the least I deserve._


	6. event horizon

Not a day after his conversation with Gordon on the beach, the family's other blond gets into it with John, a proper fight. And it's awful. The things that get said are hard-edged and hurtful and dig like knives at the places where John's wrong. Gordon's never been one to pull punches, and he'd expertly taken his brother apart for the fact that sometimes he loses perspective, and made him face what his mistake would've cost their family. It takes Kayo and Virgil both to break the pair of them up and afterward the tension that hangs over the house is unbearable.

Alan knows Gordon a bit better than most anyone else does. It's his private suspicion that he'd gone and taken a run at John purely to demonstrate to Virgil why it would be a bad idea. Because Gordon knows _Virgil_ a bit better than anyone else does, and if Virgil had gotten there first, then the aftermath would have been, impossibly, worse. So for all that Virgil's angry, he ends up taking it out on Gordon, who's more than happy to take the brunt of his older brother's misplaced anger. There's another shouting match in TB2's hangar, fingers get jabbed into chests and fists get clenched, and then when it's been wrung out of both of them, they get back to work, partners just the same as ever.

Alan's pretty sure a fight won't help him and John. He'd already come perilously close. At the time, even though it had felt like the burning black anger inside him just need to get vented out, as soon as he'd raised his voice to his brother the emptiness inside had been worse, the bitter ash of remorse. Alan's still sorry he'd ever shouted at John, on the worst day of his life.

So he finds himself hanging around Scott a great deal more often than usual, and the twelve year gap between them closes a little bit. It takes a few days before he realizes that Scott's deliberately been keeping him close and then there's a funny, warm feeling of gratitude that Alan doesn't expect. It's subtle, but something between them has changed. Because for the first time, Scott's actually, really talking to him, treating him like an adult. It's not that there wasn't respect between them before, but Scott's respect was always for Alan's raw talent. Scott's always been _impressed_ by Alan, but this is new, and this is different. Alan, for the first time in his life, had made a hard call. And it had been a rite of passage.

Scott's no John, though.

But Scott's there, and Scott's willing to talk to him, and Scott helps. Alan works his way slowly through doubt to acceptance, and the fact that Scott's proud of him goes a long, long way. The eldest even lets him tag along on a few missions, once or twice, and there's a thrill to flying in TB1 that Alan's never given due consideration, before. It's not space, but Alan and Scott have rocketry in common, and suddenly there's a bond with his eldest brother that Alan had never known about. It helps. It helps a lot.

So for a week, on Scott's sage advice, Alan gives John a wide berth. Everybody does. That's everybody's advice, to leave John alone. It's the only thing that seems to make sense, and for a while it seems like it must be helping. It seems like what he wants. He doesn't seem to _want_ to talk to anyone, he keeps to his room. The tension lessens, there are no further outbursts. Work resumes, dispatch being routed from GDF satellites on a temporary basis. Contract assignments, nothing too strenuous. It's, deservedly, a fairly quiet week.

But it's made quieter still by the fact that John's home. Though he's up and mobile and mostly patched up in a remarkably short span of time, he's just out of place in the house. For all the chaos of their lives, there's an order in the way they orbit each other, the routine paths that the boys take around their day to day. John's a black hole. Conversations hush around him, movement ceases. There's a sense of nothingness about the second eldest, even observed at a distance, especially the distance from which it seems safe to interact with him.

But that's the thing with black holes. They don't _look_ like anything, they just distort the reality around their edges. You have to look at the way it draws the light from everything around it, the dark heart of a dead star.

And after a week, Alan finds himself being pulled inevitably towards it, towards the outer boundary of his big brother's grief. Alan knows a thing or two, where black holes are concerned. Mostly because John taught him everything that there _is_ to know about them. He starts to wonder if maybe he's the only member of his family who knows what's important about black holes.

There's a singularity at their center, and it's a point so dark and intense that nothing escapes it. It's a place of crushing, incredible pressure, an entire sphere collapsed into a point of eternal nothingness. A point of impossible loss, a place no one sees.

John's not really a black hole, though. He's just a person, and after a week observing him from a distance, Alan remembers that he's maybe the only member of his family who knows what's important about John.

Because that's the thing with John. He keeps himself separate and he holds himself apart, and if he needs you, you have to go to him. He can't get out himself.

So it's a choice Alan makes, not an irresistible urge, to go to his brother. And he can tell it's such, because he has to muster up the courage to break out of his little orbit around the house, and to go down the corridor to his bedroom, and knock on his brother's door.


	7. just glad you're gonna get older

There's no answer to the rap of his knuckles, but Alan didn't expect one. He steels himself a final time, with his palm slightly damp with nervous perspiration, slick on the handle, and pushes the door open.

It's brighter in John's room than he expects it to be, all the windows open. John's always seemed as though he belongs in darkness, seems suited to it. His brother's sat himself in the middle of the carpet with his back to the door. Arrayed around him, neatly organized according to some esoteric system, cross referenced into a grid by size and function, are the myriad components of a telescope.

Alan's heart skips a beat with an irrepressible excitement, just at the sight of the thing. It's a shocking jolt of nostalgia, cutting right through the nervousness, for a time when he could never have imagined being hated by his brother.

In between terms at Princeton, John had taken rotations in orbit with their father, building TB5. In between trips into orbit, he'd had a custom training course that their father had commissioned from associates at NASA. In the rare spaces in between all of this, John's downtime had been spent building an amateur Dobsonian telescope, about as tall as he was. Alan had been twelve, that same year of the new bedroom and the morning star through the skylight, when John had let him help build a telescope.

It's a simple enough object, the Dobsonian telescope. A curved mirror gathering light and magnifying it into a focal point, reflected into a secondary mirror and then into a lensed eyepiece. At the heart of it, the heart of all reflecting telescopes, is the primary mirror, curved to gather and focus long ago, distant light. And John could have had Brains' make it for him, custom. Could have ordered it from the sort of company that made these sorts of things-could have ordered the whole _telescope_ , another one to match the caliber of the one he'd gotten as a graduation present.

But he'd decided to grind it by hand.

Alan remembers how Virgil had scoffed, literally pointed and laughed, because it was a seventeenth century solution to a twenty-first century problem, and the sheer inefficiency of it had been deeply offensive to the middle child. Gordon, of course, hadn't cared. All Gordon had cared about back then were his lap times. Scott had been absent, off flying for his mother country before he was due to come home and fly for his father. Alan can't remember if their father had said anything one way or the other. Alan doesn't remember how his father had spent his free time, because it had never really been spent with him. Clearly if John wanted to spend his free time rubbing glass together, that had been all right with their father.

They had angle grinders, they had lathes. They had a basement full of machinery, they could make anything in the world. John had just grinned and shrugged and said if it had been good enough for Dobson almost a century ago, it could be good enough for him. There was something important about doing it by hand.

So those spare hours, down in one of the little beach houses scattered around the island, John tall and lithe and laughing at his tag-along little brother. Alan remembers John with his long fingered hands running a flat lens of glass against another, with an abrasive mixed with water in between, making a slight concavity in the surface, a carefully calculated curve. The scraping rasp of glass on silicate on glass, harsh and unpleasant at first, but eventually as regular and soothing as the waves against the shore.

Alan remembers putting his hands on the circle of glass, what will become the telescope mirror, and letting his brother guide him through the motion of grinding it against the other piece, the tool glass. He remembers John making careful time, curious to know how long it was taking, and how it had been about nine hours, piecemeal, snatched in fifteen and twenty minute sessions after dinner or early in the morning, before the glass had been ready for polishing.

It had been so strange to see the curve of the glass come into being. Each time he felt he'd made progress, John had hauled the round disc of glass out into the sunlight, and had Alan help him measure the focal length-the distance where the light came to its sharpest point. Finally he'd gotten the measurement he'd wanted.

 _Then_ there'd been the polishing.

Grinding the glass had been easy, the lubrication of water making the process go quickly. Polishing took effort, took muscle and pressure and John with his sleeves rolled up over leanly muscular forearms had given Alan hope that one day he might be less noodly himself. The polishing had taken _forever_. John had gotten a fever in him once the raw curve of the mirror was ready, and had woken Alan from a school night's sleep, to traipse down the the beach and keep him company while he worked for three hours straight, until he was satisfied.

John's arms had been sore, he'd been tired, it had been three in the morning. And Alan had offered to carry the heavy disc of glass back up to the house. Brains kept odd hours, there was a decent chance he was still awake, so they could ask him to vacuum coat the polished surface with aluminum and make it into a real mirror. John had assured him that this would be the best part, and even drowsy and sleepless, Alan had been excited.

He would never remember if he'd tripped over something or just stumbled, but it had been on the steps up the cliff face back to the house, and the beautiful, precious piece of glass had gone slipping from his fingers, and shattered into pieces.

And John, in the same moment that his little brother's heart had seized and clenched with awful, horrible guilt, had helped Alan up off his knees, dusted him off, and laughed. Where Alan had expected shouting and disappointment, his brother had only forgiven him, instantly, known it for an accident, and just laughed.

Laughed at the irony of it, of bad luck, of mischance. Laughed at his own impatience, at the fact that he'd dragged his dozy little brother down to the beach to watch something about as interesting as watching paint dry. Of course he wasn't mad. He'd slung an arm around Alan's shoulders, ruffled his hair, and said he'd start again in the morning.

This isn't like that, though.

And this isn't _that_ telescope-Alan doesn't know this one, some mass produced commercial thing. John's taken it apart completely, unscrewed every screw, loosened every piece of housing, detached the mirrors from the inside and laid them out. Alan's not actually sure he intends to put it back together, he seems to have stopped, sat in the middle of all the pieces, quiet.

He spares his little brother from speaking as he picks up a mirror and peers into it, angling it back over his shoulder, the gleam of a green eye in polished silver glass. There's no anger in him now, not like there was the last time Alan crossed the threshold into John's territory. But he sounds tired, resigned when he says, "C'mon in, Alan."

Alan does. He's almost furtive as he crosses the room, sits on the end of the bed. John's set his boundaries in tiny screws and telescope parts, not to be disturbed, and that's fine. Alan needs the edge of the bed to clench his hands in anyway, nervous sweat on his palms and all the words dried out of his mouth. He knows he needs to say he's sorry, to apologize for what he's done, but the words won't come. It's John who speaks first.

He picks up a small glass lens and turns it over and over, his fingertips keeping to the edges, not touching the actual optic. "I need to tell you I'm sorry. I put you through a lot and I took a risk you shouldn't have been part of. I made a mistake, Alan, and if I'd known you were in danger I would have-well, I'd have done things differently. So I'm sorry for that. You did what you did because you were scared. I understand, and I'm sorry I ever put you in that position."

"It's okay," Alan manages, though it's hushed, emotional, and then the words are just falling out of him. "I'm sorry too, John, I'm sorry about Five. I didn't want to do it, I _had_ to. I'm sorry Gordon got in your face about it and I'm sorry nobody knows what to say. I was-we _all_ were-but we were just really scared you were gonna die, Johnny. That thing wanted to kill you. I couldn't let anybody kill you."

This gets another long pause and John's fingers moving over the lens spin it faster, roll it along the pads of his fingertips. "I don't know if it would have come to that. I don't _think_ it would have, but..." he trails off, shrugs. "I won't know, now. It's not just about Five, Alan. It's about EOS, too. I was responsible for her and I let her down. She was new. She was different, she was the first of her kind. I _had_ to give her that last chance to make the right choice. None of you knew enough to trust me to make that call. I've really had to think about it, but I don't blame you."

He continues, and he _sounds_ sorry, sounds impossibly sad, as he says, "I can't thank you, yet, Al. I've thought about it a lot, and I've _wanted_ to and a couple times I've almost tried but-" Words fail John, too, but only for a moment. "I don't know. Someday, I hope. I'd be dead if it weren't for you, Alan, and I do know that. But what it cost-" he shrugs, repeats himself, "I just can't thank you.

"That's okay," Alan answers again, for lack of anything better to say. His hands are still clenched on the edge of the bed, but they're loosening gradually. "I just...it's been a long week, I guess. Are...are we gonna be okay, John? Scott says you don't, but-I mean, how would he know-you don't _hate_ me or anything, right?"

There's no pause, this time, and John actually looks up when he answers, his brow arched in concern, "No, Allie, of course I don't hate you. God, Alan. No. Just-I guess I just need a bit more time. I don't know. I have to think. I've lost a lot and I've never been good with grieving."

That's another thing they have in common, but grief in the family has always been something they all had together. Their mother, their father and the collective mourning of their sons. This is something all John's own, and something he won't be _able_ to share. No wonder he's seemed alone. Alan hadn't thought of it like grieving. "If I can do anything-"

John shakes his head, and Alan deflates a little. But he rallies, determined, because if you let John choose, John will always choose to be alone. So he hesitates and then blurts, "I know you're gonna miss it. Being up in orbit, up on Five. I know I'm not...I'm not _really_ like you, with space and everything, but I always tried to be. And, uh, if...if you want, when you're ready...um. You could come up with me in Thunderbird 3. I mean, I could use a co-pilot. I know you can fly it, you flew it with Dad. I don't go out a lot, but when I do-if you want, I'd like it if you came. Maybe it would help."

This seems like maybe something that hadn't occurred to John and he looks up at his brother, speculative. "Yeah. Maybe. I mean, I'll think about it. I haven't flown 'Three since I was-"

"My age."

Alan almost thinks he imagines a ghost of a grin on his brother's face. "...right. Way to make me feel old, Alan."

Alan grins back, stands up, shrugs. _I'm just glad you're gonna get older_. He peers at the array of telescope parts on the carpet. "D'you want any help putting that back together?"

John reaches out and picks up the housing of the telescope's disassembled eyepiece. "Oh...uh, no. No, I don't think it's gonna go back together. I got kinda carried away. I mostly just wanted to pull the mirror out of it, maybe polish it, but-" He stops, turns the piece over between his fingers. "Just needed something to do with my hands."

"You should take the primary reflector, put it in a new 'scope." Alan's tentative about the suggestion, but things already seem less icy with John. Still, it's probably time to disengage. "Let me know if you do. I'm, uh, I'm gonna go help Grandma with dinner."

"Okay." John seems as though he wants to say something more, and Alan lingers a moment. "Tell her I'll come down, tonight. She doesn't need to bring me anything, I'll come down. I should stop being such a..." He waves a hand, vaguely, assumes the gesture captures his meaning.

It does and Alan nods. "I'll tell her. See you at dinner, John."

"See you, Al."

It's not that night, nor is it the next one. But the one after that, there's a knock on Alan's door. Alan's sprawled out on his bed, poking indifferently at a simple gem swapping game, trying to get his brain to wind down so he can sleep.

That third night, with his brain full of a long day in Pod A next to Gordon, clearing rubble from the streets of a broken city. The roar of the sea all around the island not quite as soothing as usual-and John's turned up at his door, twenty-seven, tall and taciturn. He's carrying a holographic tablet and he clears his throat.

"First draft of the new schematics for the new station," he explains, gestures awkwardly with the tablet. "I haven't looked yet, but I guess you and I are going to be rebuilding her together. I thought-I mean, probably you're trying to get to bed, Al, I just wanted to know if-if you wanted to have a look."

Alan sits up in bed, shoves the tablet he'd been playing with off to land on the floor with a thud. And he _beams_ at his brother. "Get in here, John," he demands and gets a shy smile in answer as his brother steps across the threshold and closes the door.

And with the shadow of the future between them, blue and bright and hopeful, they talk all night, until the rise of the morning star.


End file.
